What actually happens
The lunch is fresh until it isn't
Jess goes sailing off Florida with Greg, his deckhand Victor, the married couple Sally and Downey, and Sally's friend Heather. She leaves her autistic son Tommy behind after he gets upset, and says he is at school. At sea she dreams of crabs on a beach, wakes up disturbed, and cannot remember why. A storm builds while Greg listens to a woman's distress call saying someone is killing everyone. The call cuts out before she gives a location. The storm flips the boat and sweeps Heather away, and the others climb onto the hull. A passing ocean liner, the Aeolus, takes them in, but it looks empty even though they saw a silhouette aboard. Jess has a strong sense of déjà vu. In the dining room she finds her own keys and fresh food, and a message in blood tells them to go to the theater. When she returns to the dining room, the food has gone bad. Victor, who has a head wound, tries to strangle her, and he collapses when she fights him off.
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A burlap mask offers travel advice
Jess follows gunfire to the ship's theater and finds Greg shot dead. Sally and Downey say Greg told them Jess did it, and then someone in a burlap mask shoots them both. Jess grabs an ax and takes the gun away. The masked shooter tells her she has to kill them, because it is the only way to get home, and Jess knocks the shooter overboard. Next she hears shouting and sees a second copy of her group arrive on Greg's boat. They notice her after she drops her keys, and when the new Victor chases her, she hurts his head on a wall hook while trying to warn him. She finds dozens of her lockets, plus notes in her handwriting that say to kill them all. She picks up a shotgun, hoping to break the pattern, but a third Jess gets there first, shooting the new Greg and stabbing the new Downey and Sally.
Jess takes over the family business of ruining the day
The first Jess chases the new Sally, who is the one sending the distress call that Greg heard. She catches up on a deck covered with dozens of Sally's corpses, and the new Sally dies of her wound. On the level beneath them, the new Jess has just finished off the third Jess. Another copy of the group arrives on the overturned boat, and Jess understands that the loop only restarts once everyone is dead. Desperate to end it, she runs the loop herself. She writes the message on the mirror in blood, throws bodies overboard, and sends the latest Sally and Downey off to the theater. Then she arms herself, puts on the shooter's outfit and the burlap mask, and shoots the latest group. Once she is disarmed, she tells the latest Jess to go through with the killing, and then she is knocked overboard.
The seagulls are a bad sign
Jess wakes on a beach near the crabs, earlier the same morning. She goes home and watches from outside as her earlier self yells at Tommy and hits him, frustrated by his autism. This is the scene people dread most, and it comes near the end of the movie. Jess rings the doorbell to pull her counterpart away, kills her, and tells Tommy it was only a bad dream. She puts the body in the trunk of her car and drives off with him, promising that things will change. A seagull hits the windshield and dies, and when she tosses it aside she finds a pile of dead seagulls, so she knows the loop is still running. She drives away fast and crashes into a truck, and Tommy is killed. A taxi driver comes over, and Jess asks for a ride to the harbor, apparently hoping to bring her son back. He says he will wait, and she promises to return. Then she boards Greg's boat, and it all starts again.
The ending, explained
The ending is a loop that Jess cannot get out of. She has killed her earlier self at home and still ends up with Tommy dead after a crash on the road. The taxi driver agrees to wait while she goes to the harbor, which suggests she hopes to bring her son back. She climbs onto Greg's boat with the others, and the storm, the ship and the shootings begin again. The friends are dead on the ship in each round, and Heather is swept away before anyone reaches it. The movie ends with the loop starting over.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dog dies, though a seagull does.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Triangle scary?
Yes. Triangle is a 5.5 out of 10, with medium dread that lasts about a night. It is an eerie puzzle with shootings on a ship and a sad storyline about a child near the end.
How does Triangle end?
Jess kills copies of her friends and of herself to break a time loop and fails. Her son Tommy dies in a car crash, and she boards Greg's boat again as the loop restarts.
Does the dog die in Triangle?
No dog dies in Triangle. A seagull does die when it hits a car windshield, and Jess later finds a pile of dead seagulls.
Is there a post-credits scene in Triangle?
No. Triangle has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Why does everything keep repeating in Triangle?
Triangle is a time loop. Each time the group on the ship is wiped out, the loop restarts with a new copy of the group on Greg's boat, and Jess ends up playing the masked shooter herself.
